STILLWATER, OKLA. ? Kansas University’s softball team, still in search of its first Big 12 Conference victory, will tangle this weekend with Oklahoma State.
Game times are 2 p.m. today and 1 p.m. Sunday at Cowgirl Stadium.
The Jayhawks are 0-4 in league games and 16-15 overall. The Cowgirls are 27-12 and have won two of five Big 12 contests. OSU received 11 votes in this week’s ESPN.com/USA poll.
Kansas is expected to have freshman catcher Elle Pottorf back for the OSU series. Pottorf suffered a leg bruise last weekend against Texas A&M and missed Tuesday’s 8-0 victory over UMKC.
“She’s much better,” KU coach Tracy Bunge said of Pottorf, the Jayhawks’ third-leading hitter with a .286 average. “We’re hoping Elle can go. She’s probable.”
Junior Serena Settlemier has emerged as the Jayhawks’ top pitcher with eight wins in 13 decisions and will start today’s game. Freshman lefty Christina Ross (5-5) has pitched 601/3 innings and has a team-best 1.97 earned-run average to go with 55 strikeouts, but sophomore right-hander Kassie Humphreys’ ERA has ballooned to above 4.00.
About 30 seconds before the NCAA Tournament selection show began Monday afternoon, the Kansas University soccer team had a hunch good news was coming.
As ESPN News ran a video montage previewing the tourney, a slew of KU highlights were shown alongside those of national powerhouses North Carolina and Penn State.
Huddled around a big-screen TV in the vacant Memorial Stadium press box, assumptions were confirmed minutes later when the Jayhawks erupted in cheers.
KU received a No. 8 seed and will play host to the first two rounds of the tournament. The Jayhawks will play Creighton on Friday afternoon at Jayhawk Soccer Complex. Also playing in Lawrence will be Nebraska and Oral Roberts.
The winners of the two games will meet Sunday.
The other seeded team in KU’s eight-team section of the bracket is No. 9 Texas A&M, the recent winner of the Big 12 Conference tournament title. The Jayhawks and Aggies each went 8-2 in conference play this season, but KU took the regular-season championship by winning the head-to-head meeting, 1-0.
Of the other seven potential opponents in the first three rounds, the Jayhawks have faced four this season: A&M, Illinois, Nebraska and Creighton. But KU coach Mark Francis does not see that as a positive.
“I think it’s better to play somebody you haven’t played before,” he said. “Whether you’ve beaten them or they beat you, there’s always some kind of emotion there.”
The Jayhawks scorched their first-round opponent, the Creighton Bluejays, 6-1 in an Aug. 21 exhibition match. However, Francis said he did not expect his team to look past Creighton after the Bluejays put together a solid season punctuated by a Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship.
The Jayhawks could have chances to avenge 1-0 losses against both Illinois and Nebraska.
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Although Francis said he expected his team to be fully focused on the Bluejays, the tendency remains to look ahead to other teams on the Jayhawks’ side of the 64-team bracket, most notably the No. 1 seed, defending national champion North Carolina.
“Caroline (Smith) and I were just talking in class, saying ‘I just have this feeling we’re gonna be in the same bracket,” senior defender Stacy Leeper said. “Hopefully it comes through and we upset them.”
Most importantly, though, is that the Jayhawks do not have to worry about being a seeded team and playing on the road. Last year, Kansas earned the No. 13 seed, and was forced to travel to, of all places, Columbia, Mo.
“For our Big 12 championship game, it was unbelievable with the amount of the support out there,” senior goalkeeper Meghan Miller said. “As a senior coming off the field for that last game, I got chills. So, it’s a big advantage.”
Smith, Gault honored: Junior forward Caroline Smith and sophomore defender Holly Gault were named to the Big 12’s All-Tournament team following the championship match. Smith scored two goals and had an assist in the Jayhawks’ two tournament games, and Gault scored a goal and anchored the Kansas defense. It was the second time Smith earned the honor and the first for Gault.
| ThursdayNebraska (12-8-0)vs. Oral Roberts (13-5-1)Creighton (8-7-4) vs. Kansas (17-4-0)Saturday’s gameNebraska-Oral Roberts winnervs. Creighton-Kansas winnerTimes to be announced.Tickets will go on sale today.Prices are $7 for adults, $3 for students and senior citizens and $1 for children under five years old.Fans may purchase tickets on www.kuathletics.com or from theKU ticket office at (785) 864-3141. |
Big 12 Conference rowing teams Kansas, Kansas State, Texas and Baylor, plus Tulsa and Drake, are entered in the Big 12 Invitational Saturday on the Kansas River at Burcham Park.
The teams will compete in heats in the morning and advance to finals in the afternoon. The three Big 12 schools with varsity programs — KU, KSU and Texas — will be vying for the team trophy.
Races will begin with the First Novice 8 heats at 9:30 a.m.
Casey Spanish isn’t surprised few have taken the Kansas University baseball team seriously. And that’s fine with him.
“People haven’t expected too much of us in the past,” said Spanish, a senior infielder from Savage, Minn. “We can sneak up on a lot of people. This year, especially.”
Spanish will help inaugurate the Ritch Price era when the Jayhawks open the season in Hawaii. The Jayhawks will play a doubleheader tonight against Hawaii-Hilo, then meet the Vulcans in afternoon twinbills Saturday and Sunday.
After spending eight seasons at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, Price took over the KU program last summer after Bobby Randall resigned.
“He’s fiery,” Spanish said of his new coach. “He’s really intense, but a great coach and a great teacher.”
After starting last season in a terrible slump, Spanish finished the year with a .291 average, two home runs and 26 RBIs. He had 40 hits in his last 103 at-bats, a .388 clip.
Spanish joins several proven Big 12 Conference bats in the lineup — among them junior Ryan Baty (.341 average, six homers, 51 RBIs in 2002), senior Kevin Wheeler (.320-8-42) and junior Matt Tribble (.318-6-36).
Several of them have speed, too. Baty swiped 15 bases a season ago, while Spanish stole 12 in just 15 attempts. Both Spanish and Baty are 6-foot-4, 215-pounders, making their fleet feet even more surprising.
“We’ve got remarkable team speed for how physical we are,” Price said. “You can help people become better base runners, but if they can run it’s a huge asset.”
On the flip side, the Jayhawks’ pitching is unproven.
KU’s top three starters from a year ago — Jeff Davis, Dan Olson and Jake Wright — all departed, leaving a whole lot of questions in what is generally regarded as the most important piece to a winning puzzle.
“Anytime in the game of baseball,” Price said, “you have to pitch well to play well.”
Price doesn’t have an experienced mound staff and he doesn’t have many right-handed hurlers. In fact, among KU’s top five pitchers, only junior Chris Smart, who went 1-3 with a 5.85 ERA in 2002, is right-handed.
Two left-handers — senior Pat Holmes and junior college transfer Ryan Knippschild — will start in today’s doubleheader, the first of 62 regular season games on the schedule.
The Jayhawks hope they will qualify for the Big 12 Conference tournament, too. The top eight teams in the regular-season standings will advance to Oklahoma City in late May.
“I pride myself on being a positive person,” Price said, “and I believe we’re going to make the Big 12 tournament our first year. This team is right on the bubble of being good, if I can convince them of that.”
Kansas University women’s basketball coach Marian Washington doesn’t know much about the Jayhawks’ first outside opponent.
What she does know she doesn’t much like.
“They play a lot of zone,” Washington, KU’s 28th-year coach, said of KSC Szekszard, the Hungarian team that will play the Jayhawks in an exhibition game starting at 7:05 tonight at Allen Fieldhouse. “Hopefully they’ll play a little man.”
KSC Szekszard enters tonight’s game 0-4 on its swing through the States. The Hungarians fell to Drake, 81-63; Iowa State, 87-47; Nebraska, 76-74; and Kansas State, 49-46.
“They’ve been beaten so far,” Washington said. “Nebraska played everybody. They were up pretty convincingly, 60-something to 40-something, and started playing everybody. All of a sudden it was 72-72. The Hungarians kept chipping away. They’re big and they’re long-range shooters.”
Truth be told, Washington doesn’t really care about Szekszard. She’s more concerned about her own team and, particularly, the five newcomers who joined up in the offseason.
Of the five, four juco transfers KC Hilgenkamp, Fernanda Bosi and Dalchon Brown and freshman Leila Mengre expected to play tonight. The fifth, freshman Rodneikka Freeman, is a likely red-shirt candidate.
“They’ve been working really well,” Washington said. “I’ve been pleased. KC and Leila and Fernanda and Dalchon are all coming along well. KC’s really becoming comfortable. Fernanda’s thinking a little bit out there and Dalchon’s been a little up and down because of back pains. Leila’s doing good. I feel comfortable putting them all out there.”
Tonight’s exhibition takes on added significance for the Jayhawks since it’s the only one they’ll have before the start of the regular season. Kansas will play host to Grambling State on Nov. 18; its second exhibition, against Washburn, won’t be until Dec. 9.
“How did that happen? I don’t know,” Washington said. “Ask (assistant coach) Maggie Mahood. I don’t even remember, but I don’t like it. It only gives you one early look before you open the season. It’d be nice to get two in before you open the season.”
Kansas is 13-7 all-time in exhibition games and has won four straight.
Washington still hasn’t settled on a starting lineup.
“That’s one of the things I’m not looking forward to doing,” she said. “I’ll probably start one group in the first half and another group in the second half.”
Returning starters Jennifer Jackson at point guard and forward Jaclyn Johnson are all but certain to start, Washington said. Forward Brooke Reves, a regular starter last season, probably will be in the top five. The other two starters would come from among Hilgenkamp, a combo guard; and centers Nikki White and Kristin Geoffroy.
Health could play a factor in determining the starting lineup and substitution pattern.
Jackson (recurring ankle problems), White (foot), Brown (back), Kristen May (knee) and Selena Scott (stress fracture in her foot) have been hobbled in the preseason. May’s injury is the most serious.
“The trainers say she’s way ahead of schedule and we’re shooting for January for her to be 100 percent,” Washington said of her backup sophomore point guard. “We’ll try to play her before that, but she won’t get a lot of minutes. Selena’s been looking really good. Jennifer’s feeling good. We’re not worse. We’re getting better.”
